Disappointed

It all got off to a really good start. The little HP server was delivered on time. It even came with a decent keyboard and a ball mouse (didn't know they still made those). Adding an extra hard disk as a RAID 0 (striped) configuration was straight forward. When I put in the Vista DVD, the RAID controller was recognised and Vista installation was a breeze. Then it all started to go wrong...

The unit is quite noisy and there is a powerful chassis fan that can't be regulated. There is no overclocking capability on the motherboard. The PCI Express x16 (graphics) slot is very close to the large CPU cooler fan assembly. Any graphics card when inserted, obscures the PCI Express x8 slot adjacent to it. The sound card wouldn't fit in either PCI 3.3V slot so I'll have to but a new one. It looks like Creative's Audigy SE card is dual voltage sensing so will work but that's an extra £20.

Then came the benchmarking, the CPU was as almost expected at the very bottom end of the dual core table. So probably won't make a great gaming powerhouse system. Even worse was the disk subsystem which didn't even make it to 100Mb/s and puts it again as the slowest I've ever tested. So digital video editing is out as well. The onboard graphics is poor quality so even using it as a PC is doubtful unless I put a cheap PCI Express graphics card in it.

OK, on the bright side it didn't cost me much money and I didn't waste too much time on it so the experiment was worthwhile. However, the conclusion is that this system will not make a worthwhile gaming PC.

From Server to Gamer

As the local company that I quoted for a new IT infrastructure have accepted the configuration based on my old DELL server, I'm continuing my quest to discover what can be done with these value servers. Having already successfully implemented Windows Home Server on the new DELL server, I'm now looking at what can be done on the desktop and even at the gaming level with one of these boxes.

I've ordered an HP Proliant ML115 for £118 including VAT and delivery from PCworld Business. This comes with a dual core AMD Opteron, 1Gb memory, 160Gb hard disk drive and a DVD/CD writer combo drive. More importantly it has PCI Express x16 slot for a mid-range graphics card, SATA RAID 0/1/5 controller and a good 370W power supply.

So by adding an extra 160Gb hard disk drive in RAID 0 (striped) configuration, a Ati Radeon 3850 Pro graphics card and an OEM copy of Windows Vista Basic should give a reasonable desktop box for not too much money. You certainly can't build a system like this yourself for this price. And have HP quality and warranty too.

Hopefully Vista doesn't require a floppy to load the SATA controller drivers as there is no floppy connector on the motherboard, and I don't want to have to buy a USB floppy just for that. Finally, I can always add some more memory as well, Crucial have an extra 2x1Gb kit for just £38.

I'll keep you informed of my project.

Prey finished

After almost two months of play, I've finally finished Prey from Human Head Studios and 2K Games. I found it in the bargain bin for under £5 and knowing that it has been used to test 3D graphics cards in the past, and it was under two years old I thought that it was worth a try.


It was a good game with nice graphics, a good story line and very playable. Definitely worth the money. Also having an online strategy guide from Gamespot and a easy God mode meant for the really heavy moments that I didn't get stuck in it and lost interest. There were plenty of puzzles to solve and the abstract use of gravity added an extra edge, as did the spirit walking and innovative recovery mode. Also you don't need to keep the CD in the drive, which is always a plus point for me when playing any game.

So, thanks to this game's developers for taking the effort to give me a few good hours entertainment.

Vista on minimum memory

I'm visiting a growing number of people who have recently bought computers running Windows Vista and which have only 1Gb of memory or even less for those computers whose integrated graphics take a chunk out of it. All these people are complaining that their computers are going increasingly slower and a lot slower than when they first bought them.

I display the Windows Sidebar CPU meter gadget which shows the memory needle hard over in the red and not moving. The disk drive is paging like mad and there is a row of icons in the notification area. Further investigation show 60 to 80 processes all competing for the valuable memory resource and Vista's memory manager trying to sort out the mess. So how do I fix it? Sell them more memory is often the easiest solution. Easy for a desktop, but the extra laptop slot is often already occupied. Here's another solution:

a) remove the integrated security solution (Norton, McAfee, etc.) that was supplied with the computer and replace with AVG Free Edition.

b) using msconfig, go to the Startup tab and remove all the other programs that are supplied with the computer from the Startup list. All of them, completely, totally not one left. Leave AVG though.

c) still in msconfig, go to the Services tab and stop any non-essential services. For example; Windows Search which I've never understood, as it won't search the whole hard disk for the files that I want to find and won't find other computers on the network. Also Windows Defender as you've already installed AVG Free with Anti-spyware.

d) disable the Aero user interface. Nobody notices the difference anyway. They never do Windows key and Tab key.

Having done all this you should get a Windows Vista computer that is useable, responsive, protected and works as it should. The CPU meter should now show memory use at about 38-40% on idle, giving plenty of spare room for your applications. Which after all is what you wanted to do with the damn thing anyway!

The Vista Phenomenon

Again this week three events made me think about the viability of Windows Vista for the long term. Don't get me wrong I've been a big supporter of Windows Vista in the past, in spite of the continuous bad press it gets and Microsoft's lamentable efforts in marketing it at all. In fact of the over 200 DELL systems that I sold last year, only two were downgraded to Windows XP on the customer's request.

However, the three events were:
a) I received Microsoft's own Vista SP1 DVD and tried to install it on a customer's brand new, high-spec DELL laptop. It took about an hour and a half to do it! The downloadable version which dribbles occasionally onto your fully loaded system typically takes 30-40 minutes to install. Why the difference? I doubt I will ever install it from that DVD again, as it is so embarrassing!

b) I had to backup 2Gb (7,000+ files) of data from another newish DELL laptop to a external USB disk drive. It took over 40 minutes! Maybe Vista SP1 would have helped this a bit, but even so it took much too long. 1Gb of large files was only a couple of minutes.

c) I had to quote for an upgrade of a local small company's IT infrastructure. This included server, desktops, laptops and the network itself. I would have preferred to quote Vista on the desktops with Windows Small Business Server 2003 on the server. However to play safe I changed the desktops to Windows XP instead. The risks were higher and they wanted to run 3rd-party client/server applications that I knew ran on Windows XP and would probably need to be upgraded at considerable cost to the customer for Windows Vista. Risk plus expense was too much.

WHS configuration dilemma

I've been using the 120 day evaluation of Windows Home Server (WHS) for about three months now on a DELL SC430 server. It has two hard disk drives on it; an 80Gb with the 20Gb SYS partition and then the rest as DATA; plus a 250Gb second disk with the rest of DATA. Actual data used is only 150Gb at present, backing up five PCs and using Shared Folders. The 250Gb disk is potentially faulty which I only use in test configurations. It has suffered a bad block trauma in the past and though it is not getting any more, I would not want to trust it in a 'real' situation.

I've now purchased a new DELL SC440 server with 250Gb disk drive for only £125 delivered. I've also purchased a new full OEM version of WHS to run on it. I have the choice of the following new disk drives 160Gb, 250Gb (came with server and has DELL hardware diagnostics on it), 320Gb and 500Gb. I've moved the existing disk drives from the old server to the new one, updated the video and network drivers and it is working again with the WHS evaluation version on the new server.

I understand that I will have to re-install WHS and recreate the accounts and settings, so I've decided to start completely from scratch again.

My dilemma is which disk drives do I choose?

a) is a single larger disk drive better or worse than two drives for overall server performance?
b) do I go for just the 250Gb that came with the new server? The data should fit and I can always add another disk at a later date.
c) should I go with the biggest drive to start with?
d) or a small (SYS only) drive and a big dedicated DATA drive?

Also how do I transition the Shared Folder data to the new configuration? At the moment I'm just doing a file copy to an external USB hard disk drive and intend to copy it all back after the re-installation. Will this work? Also, do I have to remove and re-install the WHS Connection Client software on the five PCs?

Computers that don't work

It never ceases to amaze me that some users are quite able to continue to work on PCs that give frequent error messages, pop-ups, lost paths to applications, corrupted file systems and intermittent Internet connections.

Just today I replaced a modern PC desktop with just such symptoms with an older yet much more functional unit. I'm now receiving praise that it has made so much difference and that everything just works correctly. OK, it took four hours to copy and reconfigure the 'new' box with all the three users data files, applications and settings. But it is now a useful asset to the home and business, and has reduced the frustration levels considerably.

I think that we are so used to understanding and just using these tools of our IT profession that we frequently forget what it can be like for some users out there!

Windows Home Server

Well my new DELL SC440 server arrived yesterday. Great box for a really low price (see previous entry). I was was going to reinstall WHS from scratch but I thought that I'd try taking the two hard drives out of the old DELL SC430 and put them in the new one and see if it would boot. And it did! I had to reload the network Gigabit NIC driver and ATi video driver from the DELL driver CD and then all was going perfectly again.

The new server seems more responsive if you logon directly but not over the network. This was to be expected I suppose. What was interesting was that DELL had added an extra Broadcom Gigabit NIC in one of the PCIE-1 slots. This was in addition to a similar port integrated on the motherboard. Amazing for the price.